So I made it ... check out the NY Times article about the trip.
First let me say Alif Shukran! A Thousand Thanks for all help we received on the Tigris River Project - to all the people here in Iraq that were involved and to my community at home that supported me in doing this work. We had our problems (for awhile there I thought the trip was over before it had even begun ... our police escort didn't show up for the trip. We stopped at the River Police Headquarters ... which was, fortunately, close to the beginning of the trip. I spent almost an hour trying to convince them, "yes, it's OK, this has been cleared. You are supposed to provide an escort for us. You HAVE TO PROVIDE AN ESCORT FOR US!"). But eventually, we were able to do about 3/4's of the river, the Ministry got the samples they wanted, the NGO's got some much needed exposure and Iraqis got to go down their river again.
I've been hearing all day from people who saw coverage of the trip on TV and I've here I have included the NY TImes Article link above ... it's interesting the kind of editorial twists that the writer took. I laughed when he called my good buddy Khalo (Major Basim of the Iraqi Police Headquarters) a "shadowy security figure" Mjr. Basim.
I'm not sure if it was accurate to say that the helicopters "shadowed" us ... but I guess that reads well in the press. We certainly did get buzzed by them a few times as we went through the Green Zone area.
And finally, I have no memory of making any comment about searching for candy!!!
Anyway, I'll be leaving on Thursday ... I wish I could say my goodbye's to everyone in person but I am hoping to come back at some point for a few weeks to work with one of the Iraqi Enviro NGO's ... we want to do a project taking kids out on the river to do environmental education ... so I may go knocking on a few doors in Iraq again.
By the way, on this latter project doing Environmental Education on the Tigris River ... I'm gonna be doing some fund raising. It won't take too much to get a project like this started ... just a little seed money could start a very big ball rolling in Iraq and I'm positive a project like this have never been done before in Iraq and there is a HUGE need for it!
If you'd like to contribute to the Tigris River Environmental Education Project, contact me at my email address: speacework@yahoo.com ... more details will follow!
First let me say Alif Shukran! A Thousand Thanks for all help we received on the Tigris River Project - to all the people here in Iraq that were involved and to my community at home that supported me in doing this work. We had our problems (for awhile there I thought the trip was over before it had even begun ... our police escort didn't show up for the trip. We stopped at the River Police Headquarters ... which was, fortunately, close to the beginning of the trip. I spent almost an hour trying to convince them, "yes, it's OK, this has been cleared. You are supposed to provide an escort for us. You HAVE TO PROVIDE AN ESCORT FOR US!"). But eventually, we were able to do about 3/4's of the river, the Ministry got the samples they wanted, the NGO's got some much needed exposure and Iraqis got to go down their river again.
I've been hearing all day from people who saw coverage of the trip on TV and I've here I have included the NY TImes Article link above ... it's interesting the kind of editorial twists that the writer took. I laughed when he called my good buddy Khalo (Major Basim of the Iraqi Police Headquarters) a "shadowy security figure" Mjr. Basim.
I'm not sure if it was accurate to say that the helicopters "shadowed" us ... but I guess that reads well in the press. We certainly did get buzzed by them a few times as we went through the Green Zone area.
And finally, I have no memory of making any comment about searching for candy!!!
Anyway, I'll be leaving on Thursday ... I wish I could say my goodbye's to everyone in person but I am hoping to come back at some point for a few weeks to work with one of the Iraqi Enviro NGO's ... we want to do a project taking kids out on the river to do environmental education ... so I may go knocking on a few doors in Iraq again.
By the way, on this latter project doing Environmental Education on the Tigris River ... I'm gonna be doing some fund raising. It won't take too much to get a project like this started ... just a little seed money could start a very big ball rolling in Iraq and I'm positive a project like this have never been done before in Iraq and there is a HUGE need for it!
If you'd like to contribute to the Tigris River Environmental Education Project, contact me at my email address: speacework@yahoo.com ... more details will follow!
1 Comments:
From Jerry and Grace in PT, we are following your work and are so proud of what you have accomplished. We posted the Leader and PDN and MSC on the NY Times article. Hope to see you soon.
Jerry and Grace
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Anonymous, at July 13, 2004 11:15 AM
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